Graduate internship from the employment office – benefits for the intern and the employer

• Useful information
• 15.11.2020

Do you know what a graduate internship is? Perhaps you are a graduate and dream of getting your first professional experience, but you don’t know what you should do to get it? Finding a first job is a real challenge for a young man who has just graduated. Employers often have high expectations of employees. They want them to have several years of experience in a given industry. Although not all of them focus on seniority, some companies want to support young people in their development and offer them work in exchange for enthusiasm, commitment and willingness. More valuable than experience are the candidate’s personality traits and whether he has enthusiasm or passion in what he does. Regardless of the type of employer, completing a graduate internship brings many benefits to both the employee and the employer. What are these benefits? You will find out by reading the article!

Can everyone do a graduate internship ex officio?

Graduate internship ex officio is reserved only for graduates. So who is a graduate in the light of Polish law? According to Art. 2.1 of the Act of December 14, 1994 on employment and counteracting unemployment (Journal of Laws of 1995, No. 1, item 1, as amended), it is a person who has the status of an unemployed person for up to 12 months from the date of graduation or study, which is documented on a diploma, certificate or certificate. Moreover, age is taken into account as a necessary condition, as the participation in the internship program is open to unemployed people up to 25 years of age and unemployed people who are under 27 years of age from the date of graduation from higher education. Only people without professional experience can start the internship. It may last up to 12 months.

How to get a graduate internship from the employment office?

To be able to take advantage of this type of internship, you must receive a referral from the district employment office. If you want, you can try to find an employer on your own who would like to cooperate with you and provide you with a place for an internship at your company. Depending on the financial resources, the office will decide whether to organize an internship. If you, as an unemployed person, receive an internship offer ex officio or you resign during its duration, you will lose your status as an unemployed person.

From September 1, 2020, the amount of the scholarship is given in the table below:

Graduate Internship Benefits – For Intern

Reflecting on whether it is worth opting for a graduate internship , it is worth taking a closer look at the benefits. Here they are:

• the opportunity to gain experience
• gaining practical skills related to the field of study we have completed
• making new friends, i.e. meeting people with similar professional preferences to ours, common topics for talks.
• employment opportunity – if the employer is satisfied with the intern’s work and will have the opportunity to create a job.
• an opportunity to appear in a given industry – maybe the employer will recommend us to a friend from the industry who is looking for an employee

Benefits of an internship from the employment office – for the employer and for the intern

The benefit is that you can use an internship voucher. This is a guarantee for the trainee to be referred for a 6-month graduate internship to an employer indicated by the unemployed person, if the employer undertakes to employ this person for a period of 6 months after the internship. This is a kind of security for the trainee. In addition, the staroste supports him in covering the costs of travel to the employer, pays a scholarship and covers the costs of medical examinations up to PLN 600. An unemployed person is entitled to a scholarship of 120% of the unemployment benefit amount. What is the benefit of the employer? If he employs an unemployed person in accordance with his declaration for a period of 6 months, he will be paid a bonus of PLN 1500 by the starost.

Graduate internship – characteristics

a) What is its purpose?

According to the Act of 17 July 2009 on Graduate Training, it aims to enable and facilitate graduates the opportunity to gain experience and acquiring practical skills needed for work.

b) Who can be an apprentice?

To be an apprentice by law, you must have completed lower secondary school or eight-year primary school and you must not be 30 or older on the day you start.

c) Are the graduate placements paid or unpaid?

They can be both paid and free. If it is a paid form, it should be remembered that “the amount of the monthly cash benefit may not exceed twice the amount of the minimum remuneration for work, established on the basis of the Act of 10 October 2002 on the minimum remuneration for work” (Journal of Laws No. 200, item 1679, of 2004 No. 240, item 2407 and of 2005 No. 157, item 1314).

d) Is the contract being prepared for a graduate internship?

Yes, a written agreement is drawn up. It is concluded between the apprentice and the entity accepting a given person for an internship.

The graduate internship agreement cannot be concluded for the period of longer than 3 months.

e) What is the termination of the contract?

In this case it is important whether the internship is paid or unpaid.

When the contract is free, you can terminate it in writing at any time. However, if it is paid, you must give 7 days’ notice.

f) Can the apprentice ask for an internship certificate?

If the apprentice makes an application with a request for a certificate confirming the placement, he can obtain it. The entity where they were carried out is required to certify in writing what kind of work the apprentice did and what skills he acquired.

As the above article shows, the graduate has several alternatives in which way can gain work experience. He may try to get into a graduate internship from the employment office or to take up a graduate internship – in both cases, however, must meet the criteria mentioned in the article.